Country’s largest terror-attack simulation to start in October

The nation is preparing for its biggest terrorism exercise ever later this month when three fictional “dirty bombs” go off and cripple transportation arteries in two major U.S. cities and Guam, according to a document obtained by The Associated Press.\nYet even as this drill begins, details from the previous national exercise held in 2005 have yet to be publicly released – information that’s supposed to help officials prepare for the next real attack.\nHouse members demanded answers Wednesday, including why the “after-action” report from 2005 hasn’t been made public. Congress has required the exercise since 2000, but has done little in the way of oversight beyond attending the actual events.\nRep. Bennie Thompson, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, did not get a direct answer to why it has taken the department two years to finish the after-action report.\n“I’m just wondering how much of that information you gleaned is actually current enough to move forward with,” Thompson, D-Miss., told Dennis R. Schrader, a preparedness official at the Department of Homeland Security. Wednesday was Schrader’s 45th day on the job at the department, and he did not have most of the answers lawmakers were seeking on the $25 million exercise.\nRep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., suggested the department might be hiding something by not releasing the report. “Is it so sensitive because there was a lot of failures in this exercise?” he asked. “You know Katrina wasn’t exactly a home run.”\nThe fourth Top Officials exercise – dubbed TOPOFF – takes place during the week of Oct. 15. The program costs about $25 million a year and involves the federal government’s highest officials, such as top people from the Defense and Homeland Security departments.